


Agent Bear and the Unplanned Extraction

by cyndisision



Series: Agent Barnes and Agent Bear [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Bear PoV, Crack Treated Seriously, Gen, Kid Fic, S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Bucky Bear, puns
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-11
Updated: 2014-11-11
Packaged: 2018-02-24 22:17:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,208
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2598473
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cyndisision/pseuds/cyndisision
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>“You’re a liability, Barnes.” I hoped that would be the end of it.</i>
</p><p>
  <i>“I ain’t bailing on this mission. This guy’s Hydra and you know it.”</i>
</p><p>
  <i>“Then we’ll use our secret weapon,” I said, sliding my knife inside my pants leg and strapping it there, hidden. “Me.”</i>
</p><p>Agent Bear needs to salvage a mission gone wrong. Agent Barnes needs something to ground him in the here and now. Agent Hill didn’t sign up for this shit.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Agent Bear and the Unplanned Extraction

**Author's Note:**

> Warning for (implied, offscreen) child abuse.
> 
> I... don't know why I wrote this. Some plot bunnies have teeth, I guess? Unbetaed because who has time to beta 3K words of sentient-bear crackfic?
> 
> Also, I was inspired to write this by [this fanart](http://buckybexr.tumblr.com/post/101240260460) by [0109](http://www.pixiv.net/member.php?id=3797222) on pixiv. Which is definitely not to say you should blame them for this!

That op was a bust right from the start. Our intel was bad, and our backup was in Budapest cleaning up some mess they made a few years back. We didn’t know there’d be a Latverian diplomat visiting that night; we didn’t expect the beefed-up security, all on high alert.

Barnes took a bullet in the leg as we infiltrated the grounds.

He shook his head when I came to take a look. “Don’t worry about me,” he said through gritted teeth. “It was a through-and-through. Serum’ll take care of it.”

“Bullshit,” I said. “You got a broken femur, and you want me to believe there ain’t a bullet still in there? I may not have bones but I’m not an idiot either.”

 _“That’s it,”_ said Hill over the comm. _“I’m calling it. This op is a bust.”_

“No!” said Barnes, so forcefully that he had to hold in a groan of pain. “No. We got one chance. The Senator’s leaving the country tomorrow, and I’m gonna guess he’s taking the evidence with him.”

“Oh yeah?” I jabbed hard at his wound. With my metal fingers, of course—you ever tried getting blood out of fur? What am I saying? Of course you have.

 Barnes sucked in a breath between his teeth.

“You’re a liability, Barnes,” I said, hoping that would be the end of it.

“I ain’t bailing on this mission. This guy’s Hydra and you know it. Look, we didn’t set off any alarms. The mission’s still viable.”

I slumped down in the grass and put my head in my paws. “OK,” I said eventually. “Fine. But we’re doing this my way. You think you can get up there?” I pointed at the roof of the stone gatehouse.

Barnes nodded and pulled his grappling gun out of his jacket.

“You take your rifle and have eyes on me at all times. This Senator has kids, right?”

 _“One daughter,”_ Hill corrected.

“Then we’ll use our secret weapon,” I said, sliding my knife inside my pants leg and strapping it there, hidden. “Me.”

 _“I hope you know what you’re doing, Agent,”_ she sighed.

“Yeah,” said, eyeing the mansion dubiously. “It’ll be fun.”

 

 

I grappling-gunned my way onto the tree branch outside what we’d identified as the kid’s room, grateful that I’m light enough not to make it knock against the window. I knew if I jimmied the lock I’d set off an alarm, but the upper pane of the window was one of those that opens about four inches or so, not enough to let in an intruder. Or at least that’s the idea.

And right now it was propped open in the warm June night.

Between the metal hand and my piton I made short work of the climb up the brick to the open window. I landed lightly on the cushion of the window seat, narrowly missing the porcelain doll that sat there. Damn, that thing was creepy. Light brown curls in twee little ringlets, a dusting of freckles across its cheeks. I’m telling ya, you ain’t seen uncanny valley till you seen that thing. Its pale face looming at me outta the darkness like the goddamn moon.

“Heya, doll,” I whispered, stifling a hysterical laugh. “You come here often?”

There was a footstep outside the door, and I froze. Shit. Someone was about to come in.

“How many times do I have to tell you?” came an adult man’s voice from the hallway, tight with false patience. “You don’t come out here when I have visitors.”

“I’m sorry, daddy.” Unshed tears made the little girl’s voice thick and hoarse. “I had a nightmare.”

The door cracked open, spilling light into the room. I leaned against the creepy doll, aiming for nonchalance and hoping that nobody would notice an extra bear in a kid’s room.

“I don’t care about your nightmare. Get back in bed and don’t move until morning, you understand me?” The Senator dragged his daughter into the room, one hand tight around her upper arm. I could tell that he was hurting her, but she didn’t say a word, just breathed heavily with exaggerated evenness.

“Yes, daddy.” She sounded small and broken as the door closed behind him with a sharp click.

I already hated this guy when the only thing I knew about him was that he was Hydra, but now I _hated_ him.

To my horror, instead of climbing back in bed, she came over to the window and slumped down in the seat on the other side of the doll. Her face was streaked with tears and she had an impressive cowlick instead of neat ringlets, but I recognized her as the template for Creepy Doll. On her it was cute instead of creepy.

 _She’s distracted. Maybe she won’t notice me here,_ I thought. _One extra bear in a kid’s room._

She noticed me right away.

“You’re new,” she said. “Did Auntie Sophia send you?”

 _Ah, shit_ , I thought as she reached out to pick me up. Kids are forever grabbing at me, getting my fur sticky. Fingers in the eyeballs, you know how it is.

This kid was gentle, though. Picked me up, held me near the window so I was lit up by the security light outside. I kept still, arms and legs stuck out stiffly in my best impersonation of a ball-jointed teddy bear.

“What are you supposed to be?” she said, running a finger over my mask. “A superhero? A burglar?”

 _Little of column A, little of column B,_ I thought.

“I don’t want to go back to bed,” she sighed, sadder and older looking than any kid her age oughtta be.

The kid squeezed me tight to her chest, and I squeaked with surprise.

She held me out at arm’s length, confused, and gave me a second, experimental squeeze.

“…Squeak?” I tried, just a split second too late to be convincing as a squeaky toy.

Kid gasped. “What _are_ you, Mister Bear?”

I sighed, giving up my cover as a lost cause. “That’s Agent Bear to you,” I said.

She screwed up her face in a delighted smile.

“You mind?” I pointed to the window seat, and she placed me down on it gently. I sat down and copied her by swinging my legs over the edge. “Wanna talk about it, dollface?”

Her face clouded, and she shook her head.

“That’s OK,” I reached out awkwardly to pat her hand. “We all got stuff that’s painful. I get it.”

 _“What’s going on in there, Agent?”_ said Hill. _“Who’re you talking to?”_

“Not now, Hill.” I put my paw to my ear to make it clear I wasn’t talking to the kid.

_“Do we need to abort?”_

“I got this.”

Kid was watching me with wide eyes. “You’re really a secret agent?” Then, when I hesitated to reply, “You can tell me. I keep secrets all the time.”

“Oh yeah? Like what?”

“My daddy… he isn’t a good man.” She paused, picking at the trim of the cushion between us. “He has meetings with bad people, and he…”

“He hurts you?”

She nodded, looking down at her bare feet.

“Well, you’re right,” I said. “I am a secret agent, and I have to do a job tonight.”

“Are you spying on my daddy?”

There seemed no point in denying it, so I nodded.

Kid drew in a breath, seemed to be screwing up her courage for something. Finally, “Can I help?” she blurted. Then, before I could put up any objections, “I know you’re going to say it’s dangerous. I don’t care. I… I hate him. Mom told me never to use that word, but I do. I hate him.”

I knew from the file that her mom died last year, in mysterious circumstances. You don’t need a heart to get that chest ache that humans talk about, and I got it then. I’m not good at families, but I’m good at vengeance, and I’m good at scrappy little kids with a chip on their shoulder. I know exactly how much point there is in standing in their way when they got something to prove.

So, “OK,” I said. “There’s a file on your dad’s computer. I need a distraction. You think you can do that?”

“I can do one better,” Kid said, picking me up to tuck me against her chest under one arm.

 

 

She stood outside the door of her dad’s study and lifted up her fist to rap on the door.

“You don’t have to do this,” I said, knowing it wouldn’t change her mind, but knowing I had to say it at least once.

Kid knocked twice, then pushed open the door without waiting for a reply.

The room was exactly like you’d expect, dark wood desk and bookshelves full of leather-bound first editions I’d wager had never been cracked open since the Senator bought them. The Senator sat in a plush leather chair behind the desk, and the Latverian diplomat lounged in her own chair opposite, playing idly with one of the chrome executive toys on his desk.

They both looked up sharply at the interruption.

“I thought I told you to go back to bed,” said the Senator, low and dangerous.

“I don’t feel well,” Kid said, and damn but she was convincing at this. She put a hand to her belly, put a little creak in her voice, didn’t oversell it. “I have a tummy ache.”

Her other hand, the one holding me, she dropped to her side, dangling me by one paw.

The Senator got up, and strode around the table to grab Kid by the arm. As he hustled her out of the room, she let go of my paw as if startled, and I dropped the few inches to the floor.

“Not this again,” I heard the Senator hiss at her in the hallway. “I’ll call the doctor, and if it turns out there’s nothing wrong with you, you’ll be sorry.”

“It really does hurt,” Kid said.

The diplomat kept flicking at the toy, so I snuck around behind her to the desk. Lucky for me, the computer case was low to the ground, and the USB device was set to copy the contents of the hard drive automatically.

“My apologies,” said the Senator, closing the door behind him as he re-entered the room. I squeezed in beside the computer, trapped between its case and the burnished wood of the desk, and hoped he wouldn’t look down and see the device sticking out of the USB port. He slid back into his seat, but his attention was focused on the diplomat.

They talked for a while, didn’t say anything important that wasn’t already in the file, but I was stuck there till they were done anyway. It was probably about forty minutes before they called it a night, shaking hands on a promise for the Latverian plane to be waiting at Dulles airport in the morning.

I gave it another fifteen minutes in the dark before I pulled the USB stick out and slipped it back in my jacket. I eyed the study window, cracked open just like the one in Kid’s bedroom, and then I eyed the heavy oak door. Closed.

“Dammit, Bear,” I muttered to myself. “Great time to have an attack of conscience.”

 _“Problem?”_ said Barnes over the comm. Honestly I was surprised to find out he was still conscious.

“No, just… mission parameters have changed. Stand by.”

It was easier said than done to get the study door open. Oh, sure, I could get up there easy enough, but those slick round doorknobs are impossible without any leverage. I could just about reach the side of the nearest bookshelf with my back paws, and I scrabbled for a few moments, precariously horizontal, before getting a good grip on the knob with my metal paw. The door clicked open, but of course it was heavy and solid and perfectly weighted, so it didn’t just automatically swing wider. I had to do some more undignified wriggling and scrabbling to get it open. The hallway was dark, the Senator and staff had gone to bed. Downstairs there were surely some security guards awake, but nothing moved on the second floor.

Hill must’ve been doing a good job faking the check-ins from the guards we’d iced, because so far no-one suspected a thing. She had some prototype Stark-tech voice emulators or something like that. Don’t ask me, that’s not my field.

I slipped down the hallway, timing my runs from blind spot to blind spot on the security cameras. It’s better if people don’t know I exist, better for covert ops, and better for me not having to do press conferences and kiss sticky babies, so that kinda thing just comes as a habit to me now.

Kid’s bedroom door was also shut, but I chanced it and knocked quietly. It opened in seconds.

“Agent Bear!” she whispered.

“Shh.” I slipped into her room and pushed the door to. “Listen, Kid, you got guts. I know your daddy is leaving the country tomorrow, and I know it ain’t gonna be a picnic for you. Plus, I haveta warn you, I’m hoping with what’s on this drive we’re going to make his life very difficult. So here’s my offer, one time only: You ever thought about being a secret agent?”

Her eyes widened. “Really?”

“Agent-in-training,” I corrected. “It ain’t easy, but it’s worth it.”

“Please don’t leave me here,” she said. Like I hadn’t already made up my mind. Like I was going to be able to walk away from this. “Anything has to be better than going to Latveria with my daddy.”

“Well, here’s our first mission: we gotta get out of here without getting ourselves shot.” I didn’t mince words, wanted to make sure she really was up for this.

She took a deep breath and set her jaw, and that’s when I knew for sure I was doing the right thing.

“Wait,” she said, and ran to her nightstand to slide open the drawer. She slipped one chubby hand inside and pulled out a fine chain. “My mommy’s necklace,” she explained, and stuffed it into the pocket of her pajama pants.

I rode on her shoulders down the stairs. It’s much more dignified than being cuddled like a toy. I don’t know why it made me proud that she knew exactly where to step to avoid making a sound; it’s not like I raised her.

My hopes that we could get out of the house undetected were dashed when I saw the security guard at the kitchen table, watching the back door idly in between hands of solitaire and swigs of beer.

I tapped her shoulder to stop, and scrambled down. I gestured at her and hoped she got the message. Kid nodded and stepped forward into the light.

“What are you doing down here?” said the guard.

“I’m thirsty,” Kid said, circling around to the sink to draw the guard’s attention from where I was sneaking up behind him. “I need a glass of water.”

“Knock yourself out.” The guard turned back to his cards.

I scrambled up the chair, sliding the knife out of my pants leg as I did so. Before he could react, I rolled along his arm, stabbing through his hand into the table as I came up. There was a moment of stunned silence before he could yell out, which I took advantage of to grab the beer bottle and swing it into his head. I finished by retracting the metal skin of my left paw and jabbing a needle into his arm. His head made a hollow _thunk_ as he slumped onto the table.

I calmly pulled the knife out of his hand and wiped it clean on his sleeve.

“Sorry for the gore, Kid.”

She nodded, mouth open and face blank, but pulled herself together to pick me up.

“Barnes,” I said into the comm. “You still there?”

 _“I’m here,”_ he said, hoarse.

“We’re coming out the back door, hot,” I said. “I need covering fire, if you can.”

 _“‘We’?”_ Hill said sharply.

“This mission’s now an extraction,” I told her in a tone that didn’t invite argument.

Sure enough, alarms blared as soon as Kid pushed the door open.

“Don’t look back,” I said as she dashed across the back lawn, clutching me too tightly to her chest. “Keep your eyes ahead and don’t look back.”

I saw a tell-tale red dot land on something moving behind us, heard the suppressed crack of a rifle, saw a guard sag to the ground. Kid knew something was up, and ran faster. She kept her eyes on the ground in front of her just like I said, and for the second time I felt that inexplicable pride.

Hill had the door of the van open, and at a word from me, Kid scrambled inside. _Probably should work on her misplaced trust in strangers,_ I thought. Barnes was a few moments behind us, his leg dragging heavily. How he was even mobile I will never know.

And then he saw her.

James Barnes, stone-cold World War II sniper, international assassin, part-time Avenger, and agent of S.H.I.E.L.D., saw this kid with her Hello Kitty pajamas and her cowlick and her determined little face, and he just _melted_.

“You’re the Senator’s kid,” he said, and it wasn’t just pain that made his voice unsteady. “Rebecca.”

“Rikki,” said Kid.

“Hi, Rikki. I’m James.” And he reached out a hand very seriously for her to shake. “You ready to get out of here?”

“So very ready.”

I handed Hill the USB drive.

“I hope this mission was worth it,” she said as she hit the gas.

“It was worth it,” said Barnes, smiling lopsidedly at Rikki. Then he turned to me to break the moment. “Hey, Bear,” he said. “Thought you were supposed to be traveling light on this mission.”

“No—” I said.

“You were only supposed to bring—”

“Don’t say it.”

“—the _bear_ necessities.”

Even Rikki groaned.

“Hey, Barnes,” I said. “You know your jokes are way less dis _arm_ ing than you think they are, right?”

He just smiled, too exhausted to reply, and ruffled the kid’s hair.

***

“That’s some story,” said Rocket. He was just about tall enough, standing up on the bar stool, to reach the bottle to refill his glass “And Barnes kept her?”

Bucky Bear nodded. “Adoption papers and everything.”

Rocket held out the whiskey. He’d gotten Barnes to raid Stark’s top shelf stash. “You sure you don’t want some before I finish it off? Gotta say, humans know how to do booze.”

“Can’t get drunk,” said Bucky. “Can’t drink. Just get soggy.”

“Shame. Well, more for me.” He took a long swig, and wiped his mouth with the back of his paw. “Hey, you know what the moral of this story is?”

Bucky just fixed his gaze on Rocket and waited.

“When faced with a mission gone wrong, it’s a good thing you have the right... to _bear_ _arms_.”

Bucky groaned. “Not you as well,” he said, and punched Rocket lightly in the shoulder with his metal _bear arm_. “Traitor.”

**Author's Note:**

> In my headcanon, not that it’s relevant to this story, Tony Stark made a robot Bucky Bear as a joke, and programmed him with an upload of Bucky’s personality. Of course he followed his siblings and became self-aware.
> 
> Come find me [on Tumblr](http://cyndisision.tumblr.com/)! It’s not all bears and crack, but I don’t know if that’s a warning or a reassurance.
> 
> UPDATE! This story now has a [prequel](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3182603).


End file.
